Instead, I decided to switch to academia and train to be a Professor of Medicine.
Step one was to apply to the Medical Research Council (MRC) to fund my PhD in Immunology.
In those days, 1993, if the MRC funded the first of four career steps, a Research Fellowship, they usually funded the next three steps namely a Clinical Lecturer, then a Senior Lecture and finally they back you to become a Professorial of Medicine.
So, landing the MRC funding for the first step on the ladder was a big deal.
My PhD research was focused on the molecular biology of lung inflammation and its implications for asthma using genetic knock-out mice. Specifically, I studied how immune cells using various ‘adhesion molecules’, to migrate from the blood stream into the lungs.
Towards the end of my PhD research studies in 1997, I crafted an incredibly exciting proposal for step two, my role as a Clinical Lecturer, and four more years of MRC funding.
My plan was to continue researching immunological processes in the UK at Southampton, where I got my PhD, but add an investigation into the hormonal influences on the immune system with a brilliant endocrinologist in Bristol. But what excited me most was to add a third arm to my proposal. I suggested that I look at how psychology influenced both immunological and endocrine processes to drive illness. I’d reached out to the world’s leading experts in psychoneuroimmunology at Rochester State New York and they were very keen to work with me.
The MRC rejected my proposal completely.
When I asked why they said: “at the end of four years you wouldn’t be a ‘card-carrying’ immunologist”.
I agreed. “I don’t want to be an immunologist.”
“And you wouldn’t be a card carry endocrinologist”.
I agreed. “I don’t want to be an endocrinologist.”
“And you wouldn't be a card carry psychologist”
I agreed again. “I don’t want to be any off those things”.
“Then what are you” they said.
“I’m a polymath. An integrationist. An integral systemic thinker. A multi-disciplinarian”
“A what?” They had no idea what I was saying.
They refused to fund any more of my academic career unless I surrendered to their will and became a siloed thinker. They wanted me to stick to just one area of expertise.
Within a year I resigned and gave up my medical career entirely.
I felt my commitment to reduce human suffering, at scale, might be better served elsewhere.
Today, nearly 30 years later, many Universities are embracing the idea of interdisciplinary research. Some see integration as central to the future. For example, the Singularity University, founded in 2008 by Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil, builds its programmes around an interdisciplinary focus. Other dedicated institutions have emerged with a similar ethos such as the Ubiquity University, The California Institute of Integral Studies and more recently the London Interdisciplinary School. But an interdisciplinary, systems focus isn’t just confined to these specialist universities. The mainstream has woken up to this urgent need. Most major academic institutions are developing their credentials in this area. For example:
But where does our obsession with silos and siloed thinking come from?
I think it starts early.
When we first go to school, from the age of 5 -8 years old, we have just one teacher who teaches us everything.
Then, from 8 years old we meet a whole host of new teachers; one for maths, a different teacher for history, one for geography and so on. Each with their own invisible wall separating what they know from what the teacher next door knows.
We didn't notice it at the time. But on that Monday morning, as we met all these new teachers, our training in siloed thinking began.
And it continued until we were 18 years old, and beyond. After leaving school, whether we went to university or to work, our training in siloed thinking intensified. We met super specialists. For example, university courses didn’t focus on Engineering; you had to choose Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering or Mechanical Engineering. In medicine I studied with so many super specialists: I worked as a cardiologist, an obstetrician, an oncologist, an endocrinologist, a neuroscientist and many more. I even gathered additional degrees in psychology and immunology to supplement my medicine degree. And every one of these silos of experts have their own journals and specialist language.
After years of indoctrination, we get the message - the way to get on in life is to become an expert. After all, when we are in trouble we “ask the experts”. Nations did this during COVID, news outlets seek the opinion of experts to explain the world to us. Even football punditry relies on ex-players to tell us what’s going on. So we all learn to operate in silos, to think in silos, to just look at the part we understand and ignore the whole.
We're never taught to understand the whole. To think beyond the silo and see the big picture.
We are not taught to think systemically. Not at school, not at university and not at work.
This is why we can't solve the wicked problems we’ve created. This is why we lack speed and why people don’t take ownership. We see a fragmented world of pieces that rarely makes sense. We act locally, and we don’t think globally. We may know the system is there, but we lack the ability to comprehend it let alone intervene at that level.
Very early on in my medical career I discovered that the most powerful regulator of the immune system was a hormone called cortisol. So, if I wanted to understand the immune system I would need to understand the hormonal system. And, the most powerful regulatory of the hormonal system was a molecule called interleukin-1, which came from the immune system. It was ridiculous to study one system in isolation. Many systems interact and so it’s necessary to understand how systems interact to solve the problems of the body.
Scientific medicine is still waking up to this truth.
Now here’s the kicker, in an AI accelerated world we must understand how systems interact. AI has hoovered up all publicly available data, and knowledge. We can’t, and shouldn’t, try to compete with AI on that level.
What’s required now, more than ever, is to understand how things connect. That is where the future of meaningful work lies, in how things relate to each other.
And that is what is uniquely human. Understanding connections and knowing which connections matter. We must become systemic thinkers, leverage our pattern recognition skills and start solving the big problems. If we do that then the little problems will take care of themselves.